for people who care about the West

Go blue, save some green

The mountain pine beetle is about the size of
Lincoln’s head on a penny. In the last 10 years, it’s
devastated 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine in Colorado, a
half-million in the past year alone. The swaths of dead trees color
the mountainsides a sickly orange-brown. Now, communities in the
hardest-hit areas are scrambling to figure out what to do with all
the dead trees. Removing them is one thing. Turning all that dead
wood into something useful is another.

One proposed
solution cleared the Colorado House Finance Committee on Feb. 20 by
a vote of 6-5 and is headed for the Appropriations Committee. House
Bill 1269 calls for tax exemptions on the sales and use of wood
salvaged from trees killed by pine beetles. Lumber, furniture, wood
chips and wood pellets would be tax-exempt beginning July 1, as
long as a wholesaler certifies that a product is made from salvaged
trees killed in Colorado.

Rep. Al White (R, District 57),
the bill’s primary author and sponsor, hopes that by
providing financial incentives, “we can create a consumer
demand” for beetle-kill products. “If we exempt state
sales tax, and a county and a municipality decide to exempt their
sales taxes as well—and that is an option in the bill—
that could add up to a nice savings for a consumer.”
White’s home district includes Grand County, considered the
epicenter of the current infestation.

“The bill is
designed to stimulate markets for beetle-killed trees,” says
one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Christine Scanlan (D,
District 56). Scanlan -- whose home district includes the hard-hit
counties of Summit, Lake and Eagle -- would like to see local
economies and small businesses benefit from the sale of
beetle-killed wood products. Getting the trees out of the forest
and making the enterprise economically worthwhile won’t be
easy, she acknowledges. “We’re looking to help create a
niche market for this type of wood, which we need to do something
with,” she says.

Clint Kyhl, the Forest
Service’s bark beetle incident commander for the Medicine
Bow-Routt, Arapaho and White River national forests, says the 1.5
million acres of beetle-affected wood might seem like a windfall.
However, he’s quick to point out that not all of the wood is
readily available. If the local economies can find ways to use the
dead trees, it could help decrease the costs for forest management.

“I’d love to see smartly developed industries
for smartly developed markets, especially in terms of local
economies,” says Tom Fry, wildlife and fire program
coordinator for The Wilderness Society in Denver. However, he
cautions that “we need to think carefully about how we remove
trees, where we do it, and what the long-term looks like with
regard to local industries and environments.”

Jeff
Thomas, campaign coordinator for Colorado Forest Products, supports
developing a variety of local markets. He says that beetle-killed
wood has the potential for things like furniture and some
construction, especially products like trim, siding and flooring.
“It’s really beautiful,” he notes, with a
distinctive blue stain created by a fungus introduced by the
beetles.

But the bill does have its detractors, pretty
blue tinge notwithstanding. Len Lankford, president and CEO of
Greenleaf Forestry and Wood Products in Westcliffe, says that a tax
exemption—which could average around 5
percent—isn’t really that much of a savings. Still, he
agrees that it’s always a good thing to encourage small
businesses, though one bill isn’t going to solve every aspect
of what is a multi-faceted issue.

Ultimately, Scanlan
sees HB 1269 as a first step toward more innovative ideas, not only
with regard to the current beetle infestation, but also toward
creating more sustainable forests in the future. “The beetle
issue is on everybody’s minds because it’s so
obvious,” she says. “But this is part of a long-term
strategy that addresses forest health overall.”